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Chapter 4: To Become Free in an Unfree Society

The first question:

Osho,Arising out of one of your answers the day before yesterday, I felt you didn’t give sufficient value to Western man for the use of the dream as one of the means to consciousness. I’m thinking particularly of Jung’s techniques in his psychology of self realization.

Yes, I don’t give much value to Freud, Jung, Adler or Assagioli. Freud, Jung, Adler and others are just children playing on the sand of time. They have gathered beautiful pebbles, beautiful colored stones, but when you look at the ultimate they are just children playing with pebbles and stones. Those stones are not real diamonds. And whatsoever they have gained is very, very primitive. You will have to go slowly with me to understand.

Man can be physically ill; then the physician, the doctor is needed. Man can be psychologically ill; then a little help can be given by Freud and Jung and others. But when man is existentially ill, neither a physician nor a psychiatrist can be of any help. Existential illness is spiritual. It is neither of the body nor of the mind, it is of the total - and the total transcends all parts. The total is not just a composition, a composition of the parts, it is something beyond the parts. It is something that holds all the parts into itself. It is a transcendence.

And the illness is existential. Man suffers from a spiritual illness. Dreams won’t be of any help towards that. What in fact can dreams do? At the most they can help you to understand your unconscious a little bit more. Dreams are the language of the unconscious; the symbols, indications, hints and gestures of the unconscious; a message from the unconscious to the conscious. Psychoanalysts can help you to interpret the dreams, they can become mediators, they can tell you what your dream means. Of course, if you can understand your dream, you will come a little closer to your unconscious. This will help to make you more adjusted with your unconscious. You will have a little understanding. Your two parts, the conscious and the unconscious, will not be so far apart; they will be a little closer. You will not be split as much as before. A little unity, a sort of unity will exist in you. You will be more normal, but to be normal is nothing. To be normal is not even worth talking about. To be normal means you are as you should be ordinarily; nothing else has happened, nothing from the beyond has penetrated you. You will be a more adjusted person in the society also. Of course, you will be a little better husband, a little better mother, a little better friend - but only a little.